NSW Government Plans to Cull 90% of Brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park

A plan to almost wipe out the Snowy Mountains brumby population over the next two decades has been released by the New South Wales Government today. The draft Wild Horse Management plan for Kosciuszko National Park aims to reduce the current number of wild horses in the national park area from 6,000 to approximately 3,000 in the next five to 10 years. It then proposes to cut that figure to only 600 over the next 20 years.

NSW Environment Minister Mark Speakman said the horses were damaging the park's fragile alpine and sub-alpine environment. Scientists have long campaigned for the removal of all brumbies from Australia's alpine areas, arguing they damage sensitive waterways and endanger native species.

Mr Speakman said a range of humane control methods including trapping, mustering, fertility control, and ground shooting would be used to carry out the cull. Aerial shooting, brumby running, and roping have been ruled out, he said. The plan also identifies three locations in the park that could carry the smaller population with less environmental impact.

Mr Speakman said the Government recognized that there was some cultural heritage value to the wild horses. "But the numbers need to come down quite dramatically, because they're unsustainable and they're doing serious damage to the park," Mr Speakman said. "We have to do something, we've put out this plan to get public feedback."

He said that the Government has had the chief scientist of the RSPCA as the deputy chair of our independent technical group. Mr Speakman said where rehoming was possible the Government would do so. "Wild horse management is an emotive and complex issue," he said. "There are diverse opinions in the community and often deeply held views which polarize stakeholder groups. It is clear, however, that the broader community values the unique environmental values of Kosciuszko National Park and looks to the National Parks and Wildlife Service to protect these values."

The draft plan will be on public exhibition from May 1 to July 8. The community will be able to provide feedback during that time.

Charity Calls for Fertility Control of Horses

The founder and president of charity Save the Brumbies Inc, Jan Carter, said the proposed cull was "absolutely horrific". She said her organization was opposed to aerial culling and ground shooting of horses. "At the moment we are trialing fertility control, we want to see that established in the parks," Ms. Carter said. "We've had a 75 percent success rate, so far with our trials. Fertility control, introduced in groups of horses where the foaling rate is quite high in good pastures combined with passive trapping and removal ... will significantly reduce the numbers."

She said the horses were an important part of Australian history. "They are our culture, they are an icon and they deserve to have protection and above all they deserve to have humane handling," she said. She said the brumbies do not cause as much damage to the environment as some scientists have said. "We have independent reports, scientific reports ... that [say] they do not cause the damage that they are accused of."

She said wombats and feral animals such as cats, dogs, and pigs caused a lot more damage to the environment, but the horses were out during the day, rather than at night, so they were more noticeable.

Proposed Culling Methods 'Nothing Short of Cruel'

Peter Cochrane, the former local MP for Monaro and the president of the Snowy Mountains Bush Users group, has called the planned cull a "massacre". He said while the Government had ruled out aerial culling, they had not ruled out other "cruel" methods, including ground shooting. "Ground shooting is a new element that has been introduced and in the environment of Kosciuszko National Park it's extremely difficult, but it's also unnecessary," Mr. Cochrane said.

"The traditional methods of roping and trapping could save the Government, the taxpayer, a lot of money and would result in a greater amount of horses being rehomed. The Snowy Mountains Bush Users group have no fundamental opposition to culling brumbies ... what we do have opposition to is ... the methodology in culling the brumbies [which] is nothing short of cruel."

He said the brumby numbers could easily be managed by locals, as they had been in the past. "The fact that they've ruled out roping and trapping by locals, is in itself a disgrace," he said. "This was the way this issue was managed for 150 years. Now that the National Parks and Wildlife Service have outlawed that method of capturing the brumbies, this has raised the ire of the entire community."

He said that the horses originally came from South Africa and India and were used by the Light Horse Brigade in World War I and World War II. "Therefore they're part of the cultural heritage of the Kosciusko National Park and Australia," he said. "There's a need to protect the DNA of those horses who have a strong link with our history."

Originally posted by ABC.net